78 DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE 



Both the following slides were cub from tho type-specimen: 



V. 13230 a. Figured PI. II, figs. 1 & 2. Transverse section of 

 the minute axis arid surrounding leaves as figured 

 and described above. The little twig, with other 

 debris, lies in the matrix in a large crack in a section 

 of another plant (see p. 248). A second similar 

 section is in the Stopes coll. S.B. aa (figured PI. II, 

 fig. 3& text-fig. 16). 



V. 13230 b. An oblique section of the same twig in another 

 section of the larger plant (see p. 248). 



Lower Greensand ; Luc-comb Chi no, J^lo of Wight. 

 Found <(ii>l ^resented l>y Dr. M. C 1 . Stores, 1912. 



Family ABIETINE^E. 



Nine or ten .living genera, including the large genus Pirnis, com- 

 pose this family, and there are very many fossils, principally from 

 the Tertiary and Upper Cretaceous, which must be included in it. 

 The salient feature of the living forms is the presence of two 

 seeds on each ovuliferous scale and a double scale in tho, 

 generally large, female cones, in which the scales are spirally 

 arranged. The leaves are nearly all narrow and pointed, and are 

 either attached spirally directly to the main axis or borne in 

 series together on "short shoots." The wood may or may not 

 have resin-canals, the medullary ray-cells are specially thickened 

 and pitted (the so-called abietinean pitting), and ray-traeheids 

 are generally present. The tracheid-pits have round, generally 

 isolated borders and are in one or two adjacent rows. 



From Upper Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks Abietineffi are very 

 numerous, and are preserved as casts and petrified cones ; foliage- 

 twigs, as impressions and petrified specimens ; and more or less 

 well-petrified woods. Fliche and Zeiller (1905) record undoubted 

 cones of this affinity from the Portlandian of France, and remark 

 on their relative scarcity in the higher beds in England. 

 Probably more has been written on the fossil Abietineoj than 

 on any two other Coniferous groups, llecords in the Upper 

 Cretaceous are very numerous, and may be found under a variety 

 of modern and modified genera (such as 1'initca in Part I of this 

 Catalogue). 



